Ann-ika
by BabochkaX
Summary: Takes place after age of ultron so AOU spoilers within. This is the story of the little girl we meet at the farm and the rest of her story.
1. Chapter 1

The woman looked strange, I wasn't sure why she was but she was, strange. It was like she was a robot, cold and hard. Most of the people who had turned up since Dad died had been cold like robots but they weren't like her. I had a feeling she was always like this, not just because Dad was gone but because something in the world made her sad, made her lonely.

The lady had red hair, bright red, almost too red to be her real colour. It was short and curly at the ends and bounced when she walked. She wore a red t-shirt too, almost like a superhero would always wear the same colour when they didn't have their cape. It was like red and her black jeans and jacket were her signature.

When I answered the door the lady had been with a man. A man who wore glasses and had dark hair which was longer and floppier than my Dad had let Francis grow his. The man had said he would wait in the car. The lady smiled at me and said,

"Hello Anna, I'm looking for your mum, Laura." She looked at me in the way relatives do when they know who you are but you don't know them. She knew me, I was sure about that. Nate came to the door then, shoving past me in the silly way that little brothers like to do and smiled at the Lady. The lady's eyes grew big with surprise when she saw my brother and she smiled a big smile at him before she picked him up and held him on her hip.

"And you must be Nathaniel," she said softly. Her voice didn't sound the same as other people, she sounded mostly American but a bit like she came from somewhere else too. There was a rough sound in her voice and she said some words like a whisper from the back of her throat.

"We call him Nate," I explained, "Or sometimes Mom calls him little Nat, when he's being naughty." The lady laughed at that, the way adults do when they find something funny because you said it weird, or said something you're 'too young to understand'.

That's when I heard Mom's footsteps behind me in the corridor heading towards the porch. She got as far as the turn in the corner before she saw the lady at the door. Then something changed in Mom's eyes, she looked angry. She looked angrier than I'd ever seen her before, angrier than when Francis broke the stained glass window of the archer she had loved. Some aunty had paid for it to be put in the dining room and whenever we asked she said it was the man from Dad's stories, the bow and arrow man called Hawkeye.

She launched forwards to the lady, walking straight for her and slapped her across the cheek,

"You bitch!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Natasha, stay with me," Clint hissed in my ear, his voice soft but full of panic at the same time. He'd seen this before, when his son Francis was born but this was different. That had taken place in a hospital, with proper doctors and obstetricians. This wasn't there, this was in a shield building under siege.

"Natasha, you need to stay with me." Dr Banner was calm and collected. Doctor Banner, he knew what he was doing, he'd done this before but it didn't help the pain or the fear I felt.

This wasn't supposed to happen, it wasn't possible. I remembered being told the operation had been a success and yet here I was.

The pain was unlike a sharp knife wound or the torn feeling a bullet left, it felt like tension, tightening springs inside my belly. The tension caused my legs to tremble and curse their lot in life.

"Right Natasha," Bruce called out over a screaming shell above our heads,

"I need you to push."

Mom asked the lady to come in to our house. She sounded angry when she spoke to the lady and I knew there was a reason for that. Mom didn't get angry very often and when she did she was scary, very scary. The lady did just as Mom said and went forwards into the dining room. Mom quickly shut the door behind her, leaving Nate and I outside. Nate laughed,

"Silly Mommy, she'll get time out," and disappeared upstairs. Just as he disappeared the shouting began between mum and the lady.

"I know I wasn't there," the lady's voice came first, "And I'm sorry Laura but I had debts to repay, the debts left behind by your husband."

"He left nothing, he was a good man!"

"That may appear so to you, but in the other world, his other life Clint had some things to settle. Have you ever heard of the Punisher by any chance?"

Clint? That was what my Dad had been called, was this lady here about Dad too, like the man with the eyepatch?

"Look things may have been different when he worked for shield but once Clint pulled out his cape for the world, things had to be different. After New York, we all had to do some things we didn't want. Things to keep the civvies safe." There was a break for a minute, when the lady didn't speak. I thought I'd heard all they were going to say but then the lady said one more sentence.

"I'm here for my daughter."


End file.
